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Monday, 31 March 2014

Sometime ago I entered a piece into the Spooky Tales Competition run jointly by What The Dickens? magazine and Miracle E-Zine.

The deadline passed and I heard nothing so assumed my piece was not up to scratch, then out of the blue received an email to tell me I was one of the 18 runners-up and I am going to be in their anthology - which was originally only going to be an ebook but they have now decided to publish in print too! Whoo Hoo!

It has been a long time since I have written for the Mid-Week Blues-Buster, due to a mixture of chronic pain in my right arm and the song not quite inspiring me. But as this song prompt for last weeks was from the Smiths - and a famous one at that - I had to give it a shot, being as they were such a huge band through my teenager. I really enjoyed writing the piece, and efforts brought me a 2nd place win, so enjoy!

The prompt song this week was:

The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make?

He blinked his eyes open, the crack in the curtain
confirming it was daylight even though the darkness in his soul hadn’t lifted.
Within seconds his mind was crowded with the memories of the night before, the
dancing, the laughing, the snogging and later the daffodils.

He looked on the floor and saw the petals there, the yellow
so vivid in the rays of sunlight pushing through. He followed the trail they
made to the bathroom, her black and white checked shirt crumpled in the corner
like a marker at the half open door, giving a clue to what lay beyond.

An image flashed in his mind and he flinched. He was sure he
hadn’t done it; it had to be his overwrought imagination. It might have been
what he felt like doing when she had told him, but he hadn’t put those thoughts
into action…surely.

His eyes traced the frame of the door as he recalled her
pleading words.

“I didn’t mean to Jas, I really didn’t. It was just the heat
of the moment, just a kiss. Please forgive me Jas, you must!”

He’d watch the tears fall from her eyes as he stood there in
the nuddy by the bed, about to jump in, about to fulfil all his desires and
hers.

He’d thought he’d heard a whisper of it earlier at the bar,
but he’d laughed it off. It couldn’t have been his Linda, she wouldn’t have done
that.

But when they’d got home her sullen mood had kept killing
the spark he was trying to kindle, until the crushing confession came.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. But he
hadn’t done anything, had he? Other than show her forgiveness. He’d filled each
thrust with his desire for revenge, driving it home. Her moans had been good
moans…hadn’t they?

His eyes betrayed him again, returning to the bathroom door.
There was only one way to find out.

His toes met the wooden floorboards with trepidation, and
they creaked his way across the room, maybe trying to speak to him, to warn him
it wasn’t a good idea.

He hovered in the opening, his eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight
reflecting off the stark white tiling. He pushed the door further, letting it
swing open. Her kick-pleat black skirt lay strewn under the basin, and her
under things were huddled in a pile next to the toilet. He peered over the edge
of the bathtub and shuddered. The long-legged hairy spider might not be able to
climb the enamel sides, but it could still give an unsuspecting person a
fright.

She wasn’t there.

He slumped, retreating out of the bathroom and falling back
into bed, scuffing the daffodil petals as he went. He buried his head into a
pillow, relieved but annoyed at the same time.

She burst through the door, tray in hand.

“I thought I heard movement. I made us some tea.”

He peeked out from the edge of the pillow as she sat down on
the bed, his black and white shirt billowing round her thighs, but not quite
covering everything.

“You alright Jas?”

He reached out an arm and put a hand on thigh.

“Yeah Linda, I’m alright.”

“You’re not still angry about last night?”

“I thought I showed you I wasn’t?”

She grinned. “Yeah you did.”

His hand crept up her thigh. “Do you need me to show you
again?”

She paused, her eyes sparkling. She put the tray on the
floor. “Yeah go on then.”

As she snuggled under him, his mind flashed images again and
he wondered if he would have the nerve to make them memories rather than dreams
this time.

It has been a while since I have posted anything as I have been suffering from extreme back/right shoulder/arm pain, an old RSI returned to haunt me. It is not yet over, but I have at least managed to write something. I skipped one Daily Picspiration entry, but I didn't want to skip anymore, so I managed to write a short piece. It was inspired by a dream I had the night before, or more like a nightmare, as I suffer from vertigo; writing this piece and even re-reading it gives me tingly feet and sweaty palms! Enjoy!

Monday, 3 March 2014

Another great photo this week, I didn't want to miss from this weeks Visual Dare. This picture is so surreal but speaks to me on all sorts of levels. This is what it said to me.

She thought the noise in her head was normal, that the
constant run of home-made movies in there was what everyone did. She thought
everyone relived their lives in this same cinematic way, creating their own
drama, persecuting themselves with clips of what they wished they’d said and
done.

It seemed not. It seemed others could live free of this,
that they had space in their heads to move around, live, breathe and think at a
normal, unrushed pace. They didn’t chase thoughts related to the present day, or
remind themselves of what they should be doing so they didn’t turn up late.

And this revelation exasperated her already tenuous state of
mind, one running beyond capacity, causing the carefully constructed house
she’d built inside her mind to come tumbling down. She could glimpse the
daylight through the broken roof, but she couldn’t climb out. She was stranded.

The weeks Mid-Week Blues-Buster spoke very quickly to me, with it's deep sexual overtones. It was easy to come up with an image and write with it and it earnt me a 2nd Place. It countered a piece already written by Mark Ethridge, which is disturbing and brilliantly written. There were some exceptional pieces, so I was surprised to get placed at all.

The prompt song this week was:

The The - Dogs of Lust

She danced; her hands sliding down her long, luscious thighs
as she wiggled her arse, which was tightly covered in a short black skirt. They
were all looking at her, every single male in the place. She could have any one
of them at the snap of her fingers. Their feet tapped with the beat, their
bodies swayed as they watched her get into the grove. And their eyes followed
her hand as slid it up her body to her face, the tip of the middle finger
dipping into the edge of her mouth for a second before she swept it up into her
hair. Her eyes peeped out from under her heavily laden lashes to look at them,
all the animals in the house with their tongues hanging out for her.

She knew what she was doing. It was a fine balance between a
tease and a genuine dance. No one could fault her - no one could say ‘she was
asking for it’, she was enjoying the music and they knew it. Just because she
was female didn’t mean she didn’t have the right to do that. But it was a test
too. It wasn’t the first time things had gone awry here.

The bouncers watched too, but not her; they watched the dogs
panting and getting ready to hump – whether her or any other girl in the house.
She was setting them all off - even the girls, who started to join her.

They drifted in through the crowded men at the edges,
feeling no shame as they started to move to the beat along with her, showing
what they had to offer. They were looking at each other, not the men. And with each
beat they moved closer, but not touching. They held eye contact, turning every
now and then to face another girl; enjoying the freedom of being able to show
of their sexiness, their raw feminine energy, without fear of reprisal, without
fear of having it misunderstood and taken from them by force.The throng kept increasing until all the
women in the club were on the dance floor creating a writhing mass.

And their intensity towards each other broke the spell;
their feminine collective being too much for the raw animal lust. The lusting
stopped - some of the men averted their eyes, whether due to sensory overload
or that something unsettled them about it no-one was sure. The women had made it
clear they didn’t want them – or more than that they didn’t need them. They
were enough on their own. A few men even stepped away to find the bar.

And like an invisible string being cut, the tension was gone.
The men returned to a human state, and conversation resumed.

Sunday, 2 March 2014

I have returned to one off flash pieces again for my Daily Picspiration piece, which was posted up today.

It
is short and sweet, mostly due to time constraints. Despite having two
weeks to produce something, I am very bad at actually writing it earlier
than the day before. In some ways a long deadline doesn't work for me.
In that respect a serial works better as I am already thinking about
what will be coming next when I write the first piece. And as ever with
my pieces, there is a sad element to it.